Three iPhones snatched from owners

Published 9:40 pm, Wednesday, December 5, 2012

STAMFORD -- Three more iPhones were snatched from the hands of women walking downtown Monday and Tuesday, bringing the total of such thefts to 26 in a little more than two months, police said.

A group of teenagers who ride bicycles and sneak up behind women who have phones in their hands -- or in a case Monday, with it in a baby stroller's cup holder -- appears to be responsible, police said.

The latest incident occurred on Edith Sherman Drive at 1:11 p.m. Tuesday. The victim said a teenager wearing a hoodie rode up behind her on a mountain bike and grabbed the phone out of her hand, Lt. Diedrich Hohn said.

A little more than an hour before, a 22-year-old woman was walking at Broad Summer streets, near Fourth Street, when a hooded teen also riding a mountain bike came up behind her and snatched her iPhone, Hohn said.

A third woman, who was walking her baby on Spring Street near Summer Street on Monday, had her phone snatched at 4 p.m. The woman told police that a teenager riding a BMX bike rode up behind her and grabbed her cell phone out of the stroller's cup holder.

While police have made five cellphone theft arrests since the spate of iPhone snatches began Sept. 26, Hohn acknowledged the arrests have not made a dent in the bike-related incidents, which have become a significant problem downtown.

Hohn said he suspects the phones are being quickly deactivated and resold for hundreds of dollars each.